Today’s Must-Read: David Brothers on Miles Morales being “Black Spider-Man”:

“Black Spider-Man” otherizes Miles Morales. (It also ignores that he’s half-Puerto Rican, but that’s another conversation entirely.) He’s not Spider-Man. He’s black Spider-Man. He isn’t the new Spider-Man first, or Ultimate Spider-Man first. He’s black Spider-Man. Which is funny, because Barry Allen and Wally West were just the new Flashes. Hal Jordan is a Green Lantern, but John Stewart is the black Green Lantern.

It foregrounds Miles’s race in a conversation where his race should be irrelevant. His race is probably going to end up being just as big a part of his character as it was for Peter Parker–which I do think was a fairly significant part of that character–but in terms of who the character is and how we refer to him, “black Spider-Man” is garbage.

It sets up the adjective-less Spider-Man as the default, and therefore superior, version. Black Spider-Man will always be second-best because he wasn’t first. Comics fans in particular like to prize the original flavor, or whichever flavor was dominant whenever they began reading, so you can’t tell me that isn’t true. Every time I read “black Spider-Man” I taste battery acid. It feels mean, like the most important part of Miles’s character is that he’s (whisper this with me) not white!

So much more in the link, including DC’s labeling of Batwing as “The Batman of Africa.” Seriously smart stuff that you should go and read right now.

Dear DC, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now what with the relaunch next month and all but if you could spare a few of your staff to help make Katie Cook’s Batman a reality, you’d make a lot of people happy. Myself included.

Last night, Cook was having some fun on Twitter (as comic creators have a tendency to do when they aren’t arguing with each other) and came up with a delightful scenario for our favorite Dark Knight (out of continuity of course) including a few quick doodles. If you don’t know Katie Cook, you should. Her webcomic, Gronk, is outstanding and everything else she does is just as wonderful. (Check out her website for more.) Here is the mostly unedited stream of thoughts that started here.

I have an idea for a batman story in which batman actually thinks he’s a bat. Alfred follows him around saying “yes, master bat”.

@MarkBrooksArt the best part is that he thinks when people say he’s “batty” it’s a compliment.

In my batman, joker is a normal clown and, in bats delusional mind, he’s a villain. Joker is terrified of him.

In my batman, the scarecrow is an ACTUAL scarecrow…. Out in a field…. On a stick.

The penguin is a fat penguin at the Gotham zoo… Bats is just convinced it’s out to get him.

In my batman, the riddler is a tattered old “choose your own adventure” book that bats is afraid to finish.

Poison ivy is a potted plant in his kitchen…

The only REAL villain is Alfred… Who embezzles BILLIONS from his delusional ward.

YES RT @dreamingtree: @katiecandraw Catwoman is his cat?

It’s a hat rack covered in hats @Hat_Girl: @katiecandraw What about the Mad Hatter?

@RaphaelWent clayface is a playdoh Fun -set.

a luchador on tv RT @vilify_xx: @katiecandraw What about Bane?

Its the name of an ethnic restaurant that bats gets take out from all the time RT @thatjarrodwelsh: @katiecandraw And what of Ra’s al Ghul?

If you like my batman idea, you’ll love my deadpool story… But I’ll save that for another day.

Make. It. Happen.

When last we heard about the ongoing Jack Kirby Estate vs. Disney/Marvel lawsuit, the company had won summary judgements against the estate and appeals were being planned. Today, the estate filed an official notice of appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeal.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling and intend to appeal this matter to the Second Circuit,” the estate’s lawyer Marc Toberoff told The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes you have to lose in order to win.”

With the suit, the Kirby Estate is attempting to terminate early copyright grants of more than 45 characters including Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Thor . According to THR, the estate sent notices to Marvel not just Marvel but its licensees Sony (Spider-Man), Fox (X-Men), Universal and others.

“Marvel then sued in New York federal court claiming Kirby’s creations were ‘works for hire’ and thus not subject to termination,” wrote THR. “The two sides filed summary judgment motions, and last month the circuit court sided with Marvel, ruling that Kirby created the characters as works for hire.”

Deadline added, “Normally these kinds of lawsuits are run of the mill for Hollywood. But not when they’re litigated by Toberoff, who is the bane of Big Media studios because he has a winning track record.” Needless to say, a win for the Kirby Estate here could potentially impact the Marvel brand irreparably.

If the New 52 aren’t enough DC reboots for you, there’s also the DC Fifty-Too, Jon Morris’ new blog where he and a collection of indie cartoonists reimagine 52more DC characters in preparation for their own series. Morris explains the idea behind the blog thusly:

Once DC started releasing the cover images of what the New DC Universe would look like, it got me wondering what the New DC Universe would look like … if it were out of DC’s hands.

I contacted a plethora of very talented – and very different – cartoonists with a simple challenge: If DC approached you and offered you any DC property – past or present – of your choice to be your own new ongoing part of the DC Universe, what would the cover to the first issue look like?

First up, Indigo Kelleigh’s Blue Devil (which I would totally read) and TJ Kirsch’s Cryonic Man, for all the Batman and the Outsiders fans out there. Launching today, and with new characters and suggestions going up between now and August 31st – when the New 52 officially launches with Justice League #1 – this might be worth bookmarking. Especially if you’re a DC editor looking for new talent and new pitches.

(Thanks, Vaneta!)

Axel Alonso explains his priorities when he started as Marvel Editor-in-Chief:

Coming in as E-i-C, I had two priorities. The first was to create an event for 2012 that would blow away existing fans, entice new readers to the stores, and pump money into retailer’s hands — we’re well underway on doing just that. The second was to shape the Ultimate Comics Universe into a cohesive line of true monthly titles that inspired the same sort of water-cooler talk as “The Death of Spider-Man” or the new Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Miles Morales — we’ve got the momentum to do just that.

With those plans cementing fast, it’s going to be easier for me to focus on smaller publishing initiatives, like the MAX line, and contemplate the changing role of the limited series in our publishing plan. We’re examining small successes like Peter Milligan’s “Five Ronin,” which re-imagined superheroes against the backdrop of the samurai epic, to see what they teach us. That series sold above expectations, one of the most heavily reordered comic series of its kind, but even more interesting, when it went digital, it was one of the higher performing new titles on the Marvel App. This tells us that there certainly is a life for these types of series — it’s up to us to market them and format them in order to get the most eyes on them.

I’m kind of fascinated by the end of that statement, more than the beginning – The idea that the digital audience is more readily accepting of things out of continuity and (more importantly, perhaps?) with a clear beginning, middle and ending. It’s not a new thought that the digital audience could be such a different audience from the existing print one that it’s looking for a different type of material altogether, but the more I hear things like this, the more I wonder how well equipped Marvel (or DC, for that matter) is to supply that material. I’ll be interested to see whether All-Star Western and Men of War outsell some of their more traditionally superheroic brethren when it comes to digital sales…

Pictures of a camouflaged Tumbler — the Batmobile-equivalent in the Christopher Nolan-directed Batman films — from The Dark Knight Rises showed up online earlier this month, and the past few days have brought fan-shot videos of what appears to be a flying vehicle (for lack of a better term at this week, let’s call it a Batwing) on the Dark Knight Rises set. Here are two:

Following last week’s reports that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman stunt double crashed and took out an IMAX camera, the new Batwing has already been involved in an on-set accident. Movieweb reports that the Batwing hit a street lamp, damaging the right side of the vehicle and prompting an hour’s worth of repairs. No actors were hurt in the crash.

The Dark Knight Rises is scheduled for release on July 20, 2012, so we’ve still got months of photo and video leaks to look forward to.

Wonder why Spider-Man did what he did at the end of last week’s Fear Itself #5? Matt Fraction explains why he… well, didn’t do that at all. Kinda. Spoilers for those who haven’t read FI #5 yet under the jump. (more…)

A one-page exclusive preview of Action Comics #1 — sneaked into an NPR profile of Grant Morrison centered on his non-fiction prose book Supergods — included a glimpse of a bald character that just might be Lex Luthor (see him there in the final panel?). Now, mind you, we don’t know for a fact that it is Lex Luthor, but a bald gentleman with thick eyebrows appearing in a Superman comic book will always be conspicuous.

If in fact that is Lex, it’ll be our first look at the iconic villain in the post-Flashpoint “DCnU” world. We’ll find out for sure soon enough — Action Comics #1, by Morrison and Rags Morales, is scheduled for release on Sept. 7.

The BBC had an immediate hit on its hands when Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss modernized the literary classic Sherlock Holmes with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. But with only three episodes in the first season and an intense cliffhanger, fans were extremely eager for more. Gatiss is finally giving us a few teasers.

Speaking at the “Empire Presents…Big Screen” event in the UK this weekend, Sherlock creator/writer Gatkiss said shooting on season 2 was just over a week away. ”Season two is what we’re calling ‘The Woman, The Hound and The Fall’ trilogy,” he told the audience, “so there’ll be a version of ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’, a version of ‘The Hound Of The Baskervilles’ and a version of ‘The Final Problem.’”

“It’s a rare chance to do the early days of Holmes and Watson’s friendship, right from the beginning, so everything you know has not yet formed. Sherlock’s attitude to women and to crime is still forming, so it’s much more ‘plastic,’” said Gatiss. “The only heresy [about the show] is that it’s modern day, but after that it’s one of the most faithful versions there’s ever been, because Stephen [Moffat] and I just love it. Sherlock Holmes had become all about the hansom cabs and the fog, rather than about the friendship of this unlikely couple, but ours is very much inspired by the Basil Rathbone’s version.”

When asked the question of whether or not we’d be seeing Holmes’ nemesis Professor Moriarty in the new season, Gatiss wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Wait and see!” he laughed. So is that a ‘yes’? “It’s a nnn-yes,” he said.

The Season 2 airdate of Sherlock is still under wraps.

DC sent out a media release about the New 52 launch this morning – Essentially just making sure that everyone knows that September sees a relaunch of the books and what is pretty much a reboot of Superman, and something that wouldn’t be a cause for attention normally, except for this particular section:

These stories introduce a more diverse DC universe, with major characters with diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Cyborg, Static Shock, Blue Beetle, Batwing (aka the Batman of Africa), Firestorm, Mr. Terrific, the Atom and Voodoo, and LGBT characters like Batwoman, Apollo, Midnighter, and Voodoo taking center stage.

Note the inclusion of the Atom as being a character with a “diverse ethnic background”. Confirmation that Ryan Choi is the world’s smallest man in the DCnU?

Oh, man. This was even a possibility and it didn’t happen?

A never-aired Plastic Man pilot created for Cartoon Network by Spongebob Squarepants‘ Tom Kenny and Stephen DeStefano, via Viceland, a blog I probably can’t name here but it rhymes with “sit comix”, and Tucker Stone.

PUNCTURED TORSO!

PUNCTURED TORSO!

PUNCTURED TORSO!

Trust me, if you’re not being punctured clean through your torso by a mystical staff, Asgardian hammer or some similar McGuffin this summer, you might as well just give up. Usually, such holes are deadly – especially considering the hole is replacing where your heart is – but if you’re lucky, and happen to be the uncle of a boy with magical make-everything-better powers that now that you’ve mentioned them should really be used to end this whole story because otherwise that’s just lazy plotting right there, then you’ll find that it’s merely a setback that can be easily shrugged away. Punctured torsos, ladies and gentlemen: They’re to summer 2011 what zombie superheroes were to summer 2009.

I kind of love the randomness of this news story: Toby Scammell, who works at an investment firm in California, has been charged with insider trading for buying up Marvel stock after finding out from his girlfriend – who works in Disney’s corporate strategies department – that the House of Mouse was planning to buy the House of Ideas. But, wait, it gets better: The money he used to buy the stock, which rose in value 25% once the Disney deal was made public? It wasn’t even his; he took the money from his brother’s bank account, which he had access to while his brother was serving in Iraq.

Scammell – and that name is almost too perfect, don’t you think? – reportedly made around $192,000 in profit when he sold his stocks soon after the Disney/Marvel buyout was announced. Rosalind R. Tyson, director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office, said that Scammell “exploited his romantic relationship for a financial windfall,” leading to the SEC asking for him to pay back all $192,00 with interest, as well as seeking a permanent injunction on his working in investments ever again. Clearly, he didn’t get his moral compass from comic books. If he had, he’d have known in advance that crime never pays.

For those who thought that the All-New, All-Different X-Men could’ve had better names… Apparently, you weren’t alone, as Jim Shooter reveals as he describes Stan Lee’s reaction to seeing the characters for the first time:

“This one,” he said, pointing at Storm, “must be Banshee.”

“No, that’s Storm,” I said. “Here’s Banshee.”

“Jim, don’t you know that banshees are female?”

“Yes, but, you should take that up with Roy [Thomas]. He created this guy a long time ago.”

“Roy?!” Stan had that look of horror and incredulity you get when you discover that the guy who’s been doing your taxes can’t add or subtract.

“Roy doesn’t know banshees are female?!”

“I guess he thought it didn’t matter.”

Stan pointed at Wolverine. “This one, I guess, is Colossus.”

“No, this one is Colossus,” I said, pointing. In Stan’s defense, each character was on his or her own board, they were all the same size and Wolverine’s claws were not extended.

“But this guy looks like he’s made of metal.”

“Yes, but, he’s big, and….”

“Shouldn’t his name have something to do with metal?”

“Um….”

“Who’s this?”

“Nightcrawler,” I said.

“What does he do?”

“A lot of things. He can climb walls like Spider-Man. He turns invisible in shadows. He’s strong and fast and agile. He has a prehensile tail…oh, and he can teleport short distances. With a puff of smoke that smells like sulfur. Bamf.”

“A ‘nightcrawler’ is a worm,” Stan grumbled.

He looked like he had a headache.

Don’t you kind of wish that Stan had chosen names for all of those characters now, just to see what he would’ve come up with?

Jason Todd may not be too worried about what his nether regions look like in costume but actor Andrew Garfield certainly gave it a lot of thought when he took on the role of Spider-Man in Marvel’s latest film.

It seems with great package comes great responsibility when talking about how to deal with the male crotch in superhero film. Entertainment Weekly (who were the ones who brought the actor’s parts up at Comic-Con) writes, “When asked if there were long conversations about whether to err on the side of being too Ken-doll androgynous vs. too bulbously revealing (especially since the film is in 3-D!), Garfield laughed and blushed.”

“Um, yeah, there are long discussions about this stuff,” Garfield said. “There has to be because it’s got to be handled with sensitivity. It has to be non-offensive, which takes some tools.”

Garfield told THR that he and director Marc Webb were cautious about this. ”I don’t think it should be the main attraction of the costume.” he said. “I don’t think it should be what people are focusing on.”

Besides dealing with his Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Wang, Garfield wanted to focus on how to actually move in the costume. For this, he studied of Muhammad Ali and soccer star Ronaldo, as well as the 2008 documentary Man on Wire. “The non-fiction account of tight-rope walker/daredevil Philippe Petit, who snuck up to the top of New York’s World Trade Center in 1974 and crossed on a rope from one building to the other,” wrote THR.

“Man on Wire was something I wanted to capture in playing Spider-Man,” said Garfield. “The feeling that it gave me of this human being giving something so spectacular and hopeful and magical to a mass of people for nothing other than generosity.”

The Amazing Spider-Man (and his Spider-Wang) swing into theaters July 3, 2012.

I’m kind of fascinated by the idea that All-Star Western is apparently going to be tightly connected to contemporary DCU continuity. It’s nothing new, of course; not only did Jonah Hex show up in The Return of Bruce Wayne, but he’d previously teamed up with Superman, gotten himself involved with the Crisis on Infinite Earths and even appeared in the History of The DC Universe series by Wolfman and Perez. But between this and Paul Cornell’s various comments to the effect of Demon Knights, his “The Demon in Ye Olde Times” book, would share certain characters/threads with Peter Milligan’s Justice League Dark series, I’m wondering whether there’s going to be a much greater sense of “shared universe” in all of the New 52 books than we’d previously thought: Will we get an updated version of the random cameos that characterized the early Marvel comics? Even if DC stays away from event books for the first few months, as they’ve promised, are readers going to slowly be introduced to the idea of reading multiple books for the full story nonetheless?

So, Fantastic Four is going to return in November with #600 – but who doesn’t expect that FF, the book’s replacement title, is also going to continue? If there’s something we’ve seen over the last year or so, it’s that Marvel likes to try and expand franchises wherever possible, so Captain America begat Captain America and Bucky, Thor begat Journey Into Mystery, Iron Man begat the unimaginatively-named Iron Man 2.0 and so on. It’s not a leap to think that, come November, we’ll have both FF and Fantastic Four, but it makes me wonder: Are there other Marvel “iconic” books/characters that are likely to get spin-offs in the near future, and if so, what could they spin-off?

Once you get beyond Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, Spider-Man (about to get Avenging Spider-Man, don’t forget), Fantastic Four and, potentially, X-Men, what big Marvel titles are left that are in a stable-enough position to get a spin-off? Things like Daredevil and The Punisher have just been relaunched, so they’re not really in a position to do it (Even though DD kind of already has, with Black Panther). Hulk is getting relaunched with Defenders attached, so it’s already in the process of doing this… Is there something else out there that I’m forgetting about – and if so, what seems like an immediately obvious series it could spin-off?

It’s an interesting time for pricing at the Big Two publishers. The majority of DC’s New 52 is going to continue “drawing the line at $2.99,” with four series from the New 52 priced at $3.99 on a regular basis (Justice League, Action Comics, Men of War and All-Star Western, in case you’re wondering). Each of those series offers more than the 20 pages of story content offered in the other books, however; Justice League will have 22 pages each month, and six pages of “extra content,” while the other three books will have 28 pages of story every month (Oddly, that works out as better value per page; going at the 20 pages/$2.99 rate, 28 pages should cost $4.18).

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, things are getting odd. At the CBR forums, poster Nova2814.1 has noticed that Marvel has not only reduced the page count of their $2.99 books to 20 pages on average, but that the same thing seems to be happening to their $3.99 books as well:

After more than 6 weeks of check, I can now confirm that Marvel has moved their $2.99 books to a 20 page count. There may be the occasional exception with more pages, but there also appear to be a few exceptions with fewer pages (glares @Spider-Girl #8).

Of this month’s $3.99 Marvel books to date, the following have 20 pages of story content: Ultimate Fallout #4 and #5, New Avengers #15, PunisherMax #16 and Vengeance #2. Moon Knight #4, meanwhile, has only 19 pages of story content for $3.99, and that’s not a first; last month’s Ultimate Fallout #2 had the same pagecount (For those doing that math, that’s 21 cents a page).

While DC has been raked over the coals online for announcing an across-the-line pagecount/price, it does at least offer a minimum pagecount per issue, and a guarantee of a certain level of value for money. Sneaking 19 page books out for $4? …Not so much. It’ll be interesting to see how low Marvel pagecounts are going to go in future, and whether that will affect pricing at all.

(Update: After a couple of comments, I edited a line about DC “quietly pulling away from” the “drawing the line at $2.99″ program – I misremembered it as being a linewide, all-books-at-$2.99 initiative, but it was apparently announced as “20 pages for $2.99 as regular length, but more pages for more cost.” Any confusion is my fault.)

Fans of the hit AMC television adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead were surprised to hear showrunner Frank Darabont would be exiting the series. Apparently, so were the cast and crew.

The Hollywood Reporter gathered this information from an insider on the show, writing:

“In hot, sticky Atlanta, where production on the second season had been under way since June, the cast was summoned to a lunch meeting with AMC vp scripted programming Ben Davis, who confirmed that Darabont was out. The crew was briefed separately. One insider says those gathered were stunned at “the duplicity of AMC” for having used Darabont to promote the show at Comic-Con before firing him. And they were angry about the lack of explanation; they were simply told, cryptically, “This isn’t working.” Above all, they were disheartened. “It’s a crushing blow,” says the insider. “Even when you have a hit, they can still destroy you.”

Yikes. “Insiders” always seem to dramatize any situation under the condition of anonymity but it seems at least that the firing of Darabont was an unpopular decision all around. THR reports that Darabont returned to Los Angeles after the news to finish some notes and send out cordial goodbye emails but that he and his representatives are maintaining a “steady silence” on the topic.

“There also have been no public comments from the cast,” writes THR, “and a source with knowledge of the situation says AMC has been ‘terrorizing’ them and their representatives to discourage them from speaking out on Darabont’s behalf. ‘They’re scared,’ confirms another insider. ‘They’re on a zombie show. They are all really easy to kill off.’”

Again, very dramatic but whatever the case, not even AMC is opening up about the decision. “AMC issued a statement after Darabont was dismissed, expressing gratitude for his ‘innumerable’ contributions to the show,” writes THR. “Asked to comment on criticism for the handling of his departure, a spokesperson said, ‘We have nothing further to add.’”

However, it has previously been reported that Glen Mazzara, Darabont’s former second-in-command, will be taking over as showrunner of The Walking Dead. Season 2 is currently in production.

This story on the main site, in which Albert talks to Simons Furman and Williams about the end of Marvel UK publishing original material, reminds me of the SDCC panel about the “UK Comics Invasion” that I was reading about the other day. (more…)